Free Republic

"These lands and waters belong to the American people, and they expect those energy supplies to be developed in a timely and responsible manner and with a fair return to taxpayers," said DOI Secretary Ken Salazar in a statement Tuesday. API, WEA Call Report 'Absurd', Rehash of 'Tired Rhetoric' The American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Western Energy Alliance (WEA) both criticized the report. API President and CEO Jack Gerard called it "a political ploy designed to distract American voters from the administration's failed energy policy."

The Obama administration will soon issue sweeping new environmental safety rules for hydraulic fracturing on federal land, setting a new standard that natural gas wells on all lands eventually could follow. The rules, which are likely to be unveiled by the Interior Department within days, are designed to address concerns that the method of extracting natural gas known as "fracking" can contaminate groundwater. Among other things, they create new guidelines for constructing wells and treating waste water, according to a draft of the proposed rules reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. ~~snip~~The fracking rules apply to natural gas drilling on...

In the past three years the number of oil rigs in America quadrupled to 1,272. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney didn’t hesitate to boast , “Oil and gas production in the United States has risen every year since the president’s been in office. Oil production is now higher than it’s been in eight years.” President Barack Obama pushes the same message: “Now, we absolutely need safe, responsible oil production here in America. That’s why under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years.” This is true. But it has...

Some good news on the ridiculous polar bears are endangered because of climate change front. It seems the linkage to CO2 has been..ahem, denied. I like this part: Sullivan said that Fish and Wildlife Service failed to conduct a proper environmental review when creating the protections for the polar bear. The agency must now go back and conduct an environmental assessment of the outcome of the rule, and consider other options. Oh, that’s gotta hurt.Alaska Representative Don Young said: The lawsuits to list the polar bear as endangered were never about protecting polar bears. Instead they were nothing more than...

Environmental Protection Agency today announced a comprehensive settlement with the Department of the Interior … at schools in Indian Country, owned or operated by DOI's Indian Affairs…tribal schools in Arizona and New Mexico-Navajo territory are impacted. EPA conducted compliance inspections and data reviews at more than 100 DOI schools and public water systems. The settlement addresses all alleged violations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Emergency Planning and Community-Right-to-Know Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act's PCB provisions, and AHERA.

Oops, they did it again. President Obama's grabby-handed environmental bureaucrats have earned yet another spanking from the federal judiciary over their "determined disregard" of the rule of law. Isn't it time to give these misbehaving government hooligans a permanent timeout? Federal judge Martin Feldman in Louisiana excoriated the Obama Interior Department Wednesday for defying his May 2010 order to lift its groundless ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf. Nine months later, not a single permit has been issued. Several deepwater platforms have moved out of the area to take their businesses -- and an estimated 5,000...

In yet another example of overzealous land confiscation on the part of the DOI, the WSJ is reporting that Interior has "designated 187,000 square miles of offshore sea ice and other areas as critical habitat for polar bears".  This act will severely hamper drilling activity in that large, oil rich region.  Although the designation doesn't automatically close off the land to development, it calls on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to research whether outside development will negatively effect the polar bear population.  Furthermore, it exposes the developers to endless lawsuits from radical eco-socialist public interest law firms. This is...

Three Republican senators demanded Friday that the White House explain last-minute editing changes to an Interior Department report on the BP oil spill that falsely implied that a group of independent experts had endorsed a political decision to temporarily halt all deepwater oil drilling. The senators, members of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called for hearings into the matter, contending that the White House had manipulated science for political ends, a claim Democrats frequently made about the George W. Bush administration. The Interior Department’s inspector general issued a report this week asserting that officials in the office of Carol...

TWO REVOLUTIONS, TWO VIEWS OF MAN By Jean F. Drew As every American schoolchild has been taught, in Western history there were two great sociopolitical revolutions that took place near the end of the eighteenth century: The American Revolution of 1775; and the French, of 1789. Children are taught that both revolutions were fought because of human rights in some way; thus bloody warfare possibly could be justified, condoned so long as the blood and treasure were shed to protect the “rights of man.” The American schoolchild is assured that the American and French revolutions were both devoted to the...

Immigration: The president tells a border state U.S. senator that if we beef up border protection Democrats will lose the bargaining chip for comprehensive immigration reform. Forget national sovereignty — sue Arizona! As the Obama administration prepares to sue the state of Arizona to block its copycat enforcement of federal immigration law, Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl reveals that in a private meeting President Obama put his party's agenda above the nation's sovereignty. Last Friday, Kyl told the audience at a North Tempe Tea Party town hall meeting: "I met with the president in the Oval Office (regarding securing the...

Energy Policy: The advisory board on offshore drilling says it never endorsed a moratorium, which was added later by the interior secretary. The only thing transparent about this administration is its lies. Experts brought together by the Obama administration to review offshore drilling safety were asked to review recommendations in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. They did not give their blessing to the six-month drilling moratorium announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and have accused him of deliberately appending their report to make it seem like they did. According to the New Orleans Times Picayune, Salazar's May 27...

WASHINGTON — Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, introduced a bill Wednesday seeking to end the Interior Department's current practice of denying the U.S. Border Patrol access to wilderness and other protected federal lands along the Mexico-U.S. border. He said that would ensure that Interior's policies "no longer enable dangerous criminals to co-opt federal border lands as their drug trafficking highways." Bishop for months has been calling for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to change the policy on his own. Bishop, the ranking Republican on a subcommittee that oversees national parks and public lands, visited the border earlier this year and said he...

Politics: The water spigots are back on, at least temporarily, in California's Central Valley. Turned off to protect a tiny fish, they happen to be in the districts of two congressmen "undecided" on health care reform. One could chalk it up to good fortune or just good constituent service. But in the middle of a contentious health care debate marked by Cornhusker Kickbacks and Louisiana Purchases, we may be forgiven if we find an announcement by the Department of the Interior regarding California's water supply a tad too coincidental. On Tuesday, the Department of the Interior announced it was increasing...

Many of us appreciated the President mentioning in his State of the Union address that “tough decisions” had to be made regarding offshore drilling. People have had doubts about his seriousness in regards to domestic energy policy because our Department of the Interior dragging its feet on Virginia’s offshore oil and gas leases. Still, we’ve held out hope that America’s voice will be heard on energy. And now Vince Haley at Big Government reports this shocker: In April of 2009, during a discussion about offshore exploration in San Francisco, Salazar said that President Obama directed him to “to make sure...

Energy The administration asked for public comments on a plan to expand offshore drilling. When they came in 2-to-1 in favor, the Interior Department sat on the news. Time for a "Texas tea" party? When you ask for public comment on a major policy issue, at some point you should make the results public, not hide them until you can figure out a way to spin the public reaction to support a conclusion you've already drawn. On its last business day in office, the Bush administration published a proposed draft of a five-year plan to lease areas in the Atlantic...

A top priority of DOI Secretary Ken Salazar was to settle the 13-year old Indian Trust lawsuit. That goal was just met and announced. The settlement says the Federal Government will: o Establish a $1.4 billion fund to settle historic trust mismanagement and accounting claims. o Create a $2 billion fund that DOI will use to buy back fractionated Indian lands to ensure the problems raised by Cobell do not occur again. To provide an additional incentive for account holders to sell their interests in fractionated lands, Interior will direct up to 5 percent of the value of fractionated land...

Please take the time to read and sign this poingnant and forthright statement at the following link if you are so inclined...and then pass it on. It is being supported by the FreeRepublic Alliance site, Restore the Constitution. THE MODERN AMERICAN DECLARATION OF LIBERTY It is past time for us all to stand and dmenad a return to the Constitution and to fundamental moral, republican, and constitutional principle upon which the constitution is based.

In Congress, July 4, 1776, the unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they...

When we celebrate the Fourth of July, we are celebrating one of the most important political documents in the history of the world.  The Declaration is a statement to the world -- the people of the world was the audience -- about the very nature of government and its relationship to men.  Sometimes we appreciate what this document was, but perhaps we need even more to appreciate what it was not. It was not a poll-driven summation of current opinion.  The men who gathered in Philadelphia did respect each other's talents and knowledge, but the document they signed was not...

A rare copy of the United States Declaration of Independence worth thousands of pounds has been discovered in Britain. The document, which is in perfect condition, is believed to be one of only 200 ever printed and was found among files at the National Archives in Kew. An American antiquarian bookseller carrying out research found the Dunlap print of the declaration which was printed on July 4, 1776. The discovery brings the total of known surviving copies worldwide to 26. The last discovery of a Dunlap print was at a flea market in 1989, and it sold at auction in...

WASHINGTON – When Barack Obama called for "all nations" in the world to "come together to build a stronger, global regime" to respond to threats like those posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, WND's Editor and CEO Joseph Farah had heard enough. Farah was stunned once again that no major news agencies in the world even deemed to question the administration about what he meant. It sounded to Farah like Obama was, once again, raising the specter of some form of global governance unaccountable to the American people – a direct threat to U.S. sovereignty and independence....

RICHMOND, Va. – A rare 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence belongs to a Virginia technology entrepreneur, not the state of Maine, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled Friday. Richard Adams Jr. of Fairfax County purchased the document from a London book dealer in 2001 for $475,000. But the state of Maine claimed it belongs to the town of Wiscasset, where it was kept by the town clerk in 1776. Virginia's high court said that a lower court did not err in its ruling in Adams' favor because Maine didn't prove the document was ever an official town record and...

In his Saturday remarks during his campaign train ride, President-elect Barack Obama issued some soaring rhetoric about the state of the country today. At least the Old Media thought it was soaring rhetoric, anyway. Typically, the media was overawed by his mellifluous tones, of course. But during these remarks in Baltimore Obama made a startling suggestion. He said we need a "new Declaration of Independence." Apparently the original one isn't good enough for the new president, but it also seems a silly rhetorical flourish. After all, what is it that we are declaring independence from this time? Recall that the...

New Rules On Right-To-Carry In Our National Parks Take Effect Today Friday, January 09, 2009 In early December, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), through the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, announced the final amended version of a change to rules on carrying firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges. The change will restore the right of law-abiding gun owners to transport and carry concealed firearms for lawful purposes on most DOI lands, according to the laws of the states in which these public lands are located. The new rule, which takes effect today, allows...

Scathing reports released Wednesday charge officials with “a culture of ethical failure” involving sex, drugs and financial shenanigans at a federal agency in Denver charged with collecting energy royalties for taxpayers. In three reports prepared for Congress by the Department of Interior’s inspector general, 13 current and former employees at the agency’s Minerals Management Service were charged with violating the public trust in a frat house atmosphere. MMS employees, according to the reports, accepted gifts from oil companies, had sex with industry contacts, and did drugs at the office and at oil company parties. Other MMS officials steered business to...

BAGHDAD — The last of nearly 2,900 members of the Sons of Iraq (SOI) and Daughters of Iraq (DOI) were officially registered with the Government of Iraq in Adhamiyah District of northern Baghdad, Sept. 20. The SOI, and most recently, the DOI, are volunteer citizen groups similar to the Neighborhood Watch Program in the United States. They have been instrumental in decreasing attacks and have aided Iraqi and Coalition forces with actionable intelligence. The men and women made their way to Combat Outpost Apache in northern Baghdad to have their paperwork processed and information entered into a database to facilitate...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- At least 49 offshore oil platforms, all with production of less than 1,000 barrels a day, were destroyed by Hurricane Ike as it raced across the Gulf of Mexico, and some may not be rebuilt, the Interior Department said Thursday. It said in the latest hurricane damage assessment that the platforms altogether accounted for 13,000 barrels of oil and 84 million cubic feet of natural gas a day. There are more than 3,800 production platforms in the Gulf producing 1.3 million barrels of oil and 7 billion cubic feet of gas each day. Most remain shut down.

Can’t wait for the fundraising photo of Abe Lincoln, sitting in his Memorial with an Obama t-shirt on saying “Emancipation for America - Vote Obama.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne today announced that he is accepting the recommendation of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  The listing is based on the best available science, which shows that loss of sea ice threatens and will likely continue to threaten polar bear habitat.  This loss of habitat puts polar bears at risk of becoming endangered in the foreseeable future, the standard established by the ESA for designating a threatened species. In making the announcement, Kempthorne said,...

Declaration falls through the cracksThe Supreme Court's rare copy is safely tucked away, then forgotten for seven years, a spokeswoman says. By Steve Chawkins, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 19, 2008 When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to locate a rare, vintage copy of the nation's founding document, try looking behind the filing cabinet. That was a lesson learned the hard way at the Supreme Court, where a 185-year-old facsimile of the Declaration of Independence gathered dust for seven years, tucked behind the office furniture, a court spokeswoman acknowledged this week. Commissioned by John Quincy...

The Press of a Patriot Norfolk's first newspaper, the Virginia Gazette, or Norfolk Intelligencer, had a brief but memorable existance. Its first issue appeared on June 9, 1774, and what is believed to have been its last issue left the press on September 27, 1775. The four-page weekly, the only known copies of which are preserved in the Library of Congress, was first published by William S. Duncan & Company, whose printing office was on the east side of the Parade or Market Square, later known as Commercial Place. Arbitrary Governance Leading to Suppression of Freedom In April of...

This Christmas marks the 350th anniversary of the least-honoured genesis of American freedom, to be celebrated in the New York suburb of Queens. For only the fourth time in its history a fragile piece of paper called the Flushing Remonstrance will go on display. Written in 1657 by the English citizens of the Long Island village of Flushing, it asserted their right to freedom of conscience against the autocracy of Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of their colony of New Netherland. It thus long predated the “self-evident truths” of Jefferson’s 1776 Declaration of Independence. The Flushing Remonstrance protested against Stuyvesant’s...

Baron Bodissey forwarded this email today; is the US Department of the Interior following the lead of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and blocking American anti-jihad sites? I’m a long-time reader, without ever actually commenting on anything. Yesterday the U.S. Department of the Interior (I work for the Mineral Management Service) installed blocking software on their entire network. Gates of Vienna is now blocked, as are all sites with a .blogspot URL. Also blocked are other conservative blogs, such as Wizbang. More than half the sites I check on a daily basis are now completely blocked. As of today, Little Green...

G. K. Chesterton, an Englishman, remarked in 1922 that "America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed." That creed was given 230 years ago by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" and "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." As Lincoln said one afternoon in Gettysburg, America was, and continues to be, the only country dedicated to a proposition. It is, in the...

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life,...

Obscure graves bury the accomplishments of two Northern Neck brothers who signed the Declaration of Independence __ They were brothers whose signatures on the Declaration of Independence made them American heroes for all time. Now Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee rest in obscure Northern Neck graveyards visited by few, even on the Fourth of July. "We only come out here when somebody dies," said H. Gwynne Tayloe III. Tayloe stood Sunday beside a brick-walled cemetery where Francis Lightfoot Lee is buried beside Tayloe's ancestors at Mount Airy Farm near Warsaw. The graveyard is a 10-minute walk from the...

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I don't know how true the stories are about what Fourth of July celebrations were like in the earlier days of the Republic. I'm sure I read the Declaration during a high school history class, but it wasn't emphasized, and nobody even hinted to me that it just might have been the most profoundly revolutionary document in human history. I didn't start thinking about it seriously until I was finished with college and trying to figure out whether I wanted to be a politician or a writer. I have, of course, come to appreciate what the Declaration of Independence means....

June 15, 2006 -- WHO'D have thought it possible even a month ago? President Bush is getting his mojo back. The president just had the best week of his second term, perhaps of his entire presidency - and the end of the investigation of Karl Rove, which would have been the headline grabber not long ago, had little to do with it. Instead, the president's brilliantly conceived and executed trip to Baghdad - giving exactly the right boost at the right time to new Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki - capped off seven days that included the forming of a...

Last year, I was privileged to work with Brian Maloney of The Radio Equalizer on an ongoing blog investigative series about beleaguered Air America radio's finances. Brian has continued to dig and dig deep on the story. He has a new report here and will discuss it tonight on The O'Reilly Factor. Brian asks: "Did Al Franken's outrageous salary demands hamper Air America's ability to repay the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in 2005?" Excerpt: During the same mid-to-late 2004 period when Air America parent Piquant LLC was quietly considering how to resolve the still-undisclosed scandal, Franken was demanding...

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen ColoniesIn CONGRESS, July 4, 1776The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that...

Nowadays, whenever we disagree with, or are disturbed by, what this administration is doing to America and to the world, we are regularly reminded, through subtle innuendo or even veiled threats, that opposing thoughts are unwelcome, forbidden, or even traitorous. That’s truly amazing. Are we to believe that when Thomas Jefferson said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism,” that he may have been in his cups? I doubt it. I believe Jefferson was dead sober, and serious, when he uttered those words. And the historic event that followed proved it. Fifty six very courageous citizens determined to genuflect to...

Shepherdstown, W.Va. The American conservationist may be an endangered species, both in numbers and public influence. That's the bleak news suggested by some attendees at the National Conservation Learning Summit, held this weekend at the sprawling woodland campus of the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia. Some estimates indicate that as many as 60 percent of the most senior federal employees are eligible to retire in 2007. Many of those are in conservation and natural resource fields. Over one-half of the senior executives at the Department of the Interior, USDA Forest Service and Environmental Protection Agency will retire by...

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The new version of the Endangered Species Act approved by the House is unlikely to pass muster in the Senate, at least right away. Critics worry especially about a murky provision that could pay landowners tens of millions of dollars in damages for property devalued by restrictions due to rare critters or plants. Nonetheless, sponsors' success in getting this far and winning bipartisan backing shows widespread recognition of problems in one of the nation's most venerable environmental laws. In a barometer of emotions flowing on the issue, no fewer than four Old Testament books (Genesis, Psalms,...

If you believe Air America, Al Franken, and their clueless defenders, the liberal radio network's now-notorious financial problems with the Bronx-based Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club were solely the fault and purview of its previous ownership--and in particular, former AAR chairman Evan Cohen (the man Franken singled out as a "crook" on his radio show). In one of its first statements on the matter in late July, Air America attempted to distance itself from "the allegations of mismanagement and corruption at Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club" and spoke of the charity's dealings with Cohen as if they were...

How would you defend liberal talk host Al Franken's lies if your company's future was at stake? After weeks of ignoring our Air America Radio scandal coverage, they're increasingly reactive to news developments. While the company refuses to respond to Michelle Malkin and myself directly, they're talking to others who publish follow-ups and news summaries. Their key tactic: outright issue deflection. Not only that, but there are serious questions today about Air America's new public relations push on the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club repayment issue, where $875,000 in taxpayer funds were apparently diverted to the liberal talk radio...

August 2, 1776  The journal of the Continental Congress record reports: “The declaration of independence being engrossed and compared at the table was signed." which contradicts the popular belief that the Declaration was signed on July 4, 1776, by all the delegates in attendance. "John Hancock, the President of the Congress, was the first to sign the sheet of parchment measuring 24¼ by 29¾ inches. He used a bold signature centered below the text. In accordance with prevailing custom, the other delegates began to sign at the right below the text, their signatures arranged according to the geographic location...

"We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." JOHN HANCOCK, President Attested, CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary New Hampshire: JOSIAH BARTLETT, WILLIAM WHIPPLE, MATTHEW THORNTON Massachusetts-Bay: SAMUEL ADAMS, JOHN ADAMS, ROBERT TREAT PAINE, ELBRIDGE GERRY Rhode Island: STEPHEN HOPKINS, WILLIAM ELLERY Connecticut: ROGER SHERMAN, SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, WILLIAM WILLIAMS, OLIVER WOLCOTT Georgia: BUTTON GWINNETT, LYMAN HALL, GEO. WALTON Maryland: SAMUEL CHASE, WILLIAM PACA, THOMAS STONE, CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON Virginia: GEORGE WYTHE, RICHARD HENRY LEE, THOMAS JEFFERSON, BENJAMIN HARRISON, THOMAS NELSON, JR., FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE, CARTER BRAXTON. New York: WILLIAM FLOYD, PHILIP LIVINGSTON, FRANCIS LEWIS, LEWIS MORRIS...

In Congress, July 4, 1776, THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The Declaration of Secession and Independence, July, 1776 An early act of American independence occurred in Rhode Island on May 4, 1776. The legislature and the governor met as an extra ordinary assembly, and adopted a statute which stated that Rhode Island was seceded from the British Empire. A few weeks later, Virginia declared itself in secession from the British Empire on June 12 then later on the 29th, 1776, again apart from the Declaration of Independence. These declarations were the first examples of a convention of the people of a State assuming the attributes of a sovereign power, passing...